Finalists for #GetStartedAfrica announced!

The second part of NESCAFE's Get Started (Africa) Challenge begins. The 4 finalists have been chosen after many dreams were submitted via getstartedafrica.com. This is the second edition. The first winner was Fab Muazu who I met last year in Accra via #startcon14. I was with him and other digital influencers in Abidjan this year alongside Ameyaw Debrah who blogged about Muazu.

Read the press release below and stay tuned to updates via #getstartedafrica.

[ACCRA, Ghana] – Part one of NESCAFÉ’s Get Started Challenge 2015, which involved a West African truck tour, has just ended. In part two, the best dream projects will compete in a grand finale that will determine the ultimate winner of US$30,000 worth of financial support and mentoring to get them started.

NESCAFÉ Get Started is a challenge where young Africans between the ages of 18 and 30 submit their socially-relevant dream projects to NESCAFÉ in order to win the aforementioned support from the coffee brand.

NESCAFÉ seeks to inspire the African youth to take part in reshaping the new Africa with their own success stories. The brand believes in the potential of the continent’s young people, so it has decided to demonstrate this belief through inspiring them to share their dreams and supporting the most outstanding one.

Part one of Get Started saw the NESCAFÉ truck travel across West Africa, stopping in Côte D'Ivoire, Senegal, Burkina Faso and Nigeria.

From the activation grounds and other locations across the region, dreams were being submitted online via www.getstartedafrica.com.

After a selection process that reduced hundreds of dreams to 9, the public voted again to determine the top four finalists. These are Dare Adu, from Nigeria, who plans to help widows and orphans to become financially independent ; Moïse Compaoré, from Burkina Faso, who is determined to reduce the number of deaths that could be avoided by immediately giving all the patients that enter the emergency ward the emergency medicines; Pierre Nahoa, from Cote d'Ivoire, with the aim of creating a platform that provides native languages learning courses in Côte d'Ivoire and Africa and Korotoumou Sidibé, from Mali, who desires to eradicate food insecurity first in Mali and other parts of Africa.

In part two of NESCAFÉ Get Started, each of the four finalists will be coached via live Google Hangouts on the best way to present their dreams by influential African bloggers who have been able to start their own dreams. After this, there will be a final pitch to a celebrity jury that will determine the ultimate winner.

The jury will consist of Toyosi Akerele-Ogunisji, founder of the RISE Networks Social Enterprise, Fred Swaniker, founder of the African Leadership Academy and Adama Ndiaye, the fashion designer behind Adama Paris and founder of Dakar Fashion Week. Each of these African entrepreneurs will use their expertise and experience in adjudging who the winner should be.

“We can't wait to see what these dreams are really made of,” says Swaniker. “Each of them has the potential to greatly contribute to creating the Africa we all dream of.”

The second phase of NESCAFÉ Get Started begins this month. By the end of the competition, another young African dreamer will have won the ability to begin making their dream project a reality

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For the latest updates on this competition, visit www.getstartedafrica.com